OT WAS RE: Mini Timers NOW Meerkats (Again?)

["Brian G. Reynolds" <brian.g.reynolds@xxxxxxx>]

Long story, to cut a long story short (ish) I was medically discharged from
the RAF and had to sell my house to live, in the meantime I lodged with my
eldest Sister and her Husband both of whom were involved in the captive
breading program.
They had Coarties/Cotymondeys (I have not got a clue how these are spelt,
Ring-Tailed Limas, Bush-Babies, various monkeys and Meerkats.

One of the female Meerkats had a habit of eating her young (we ought to
learn from animals and adopt this idea, beats sending them to school!) so
one night after she had a brood we noticed her starting to eat the young
but
only rescued one after she had eaten its tail!

It was then fed every 2 hours for the next few weeks, day and night! and as
we raised it this way it obviously became hand tame and we adopted it.

When I eventually bought a new house we kept the baby "female"
Meerkat as a
pet.

She briefly lived in a built in cage in the kitchen and when we were home
she had the run of the house, which normally meant following us around the
house, She was so playful and very entertaining.

But they smell badly when doing "number two's" and mess in their
own bed! (I
have had friends in the RAF that did that!) so I built her an outside shed
with tunnels around the garden and built them a heated nestbox.

We then bought a male that turned out to be female! and so we bought a male
to form a colony.

Some time later I fitted CCTV to the nestbox and found they were cold on
some nights so I re-designed a new nestbox and although I say it myself it
is probably the best cage I have ever made! talk of over engineered!

My next-door neighbour then gave me his old large home made shed so I (and
3
others) dismantled it and re-built it under my pergola, insulated it, sat
the old nestbox in one end, made a glass hinged door half way along and
fitted a freezer in the other end for their food.

The "new" female is still wild and tries to slowly bite you, not
enough to
rip your finger off but just enough to let you know she is still wild. The
male one is tame enough to sit on my shoulder and crawl over me when I am
in
their cage but as soon as you try and touch him he is off to return very
shortly after.

One of their top tunnels overlooks my garden fence next to a church and
"god-squad" can see themselves being watched by the Meerkats and
even asked
me one day what they were as it had caused them much amusement for quite
some time debating what they were.

They have excellent eye-sight and are always on the lookout for eagles
(hang
gliders, gliders, that sort of thing) and make a "barking" sort
of noise
when they see one, normally long before I can see it!

As for having them as pets, it is not illegal in this country and you do
not
need a licence, which is strange as (allegedly) they will attack strangers
who venture into their territory, personally, although you can tell they
mean great harm to strangers I do not believe they will attack (OK so a
heating engineer put his hand into an open topped outside cage once and
very
nearly got savaged, had he not have been so quick that would have been very
nasty!), ask me how I know........

There is a chap here in Rushden who's business is making fish tanks and he
has a Meerkat running around the shop/unit, I have never met him but we
both
know of each other.

They are great pets but are expensive to buy and very time consuming to
look
after properly as they are very intelligent (?) and have to be kept amused,
but after a hard day at the office on a hot summers evening it is a great
way to chill out sitting in a cage and just let them kill your boots and
crawl over you, they use you as a tree as you will have seen on the TV.

When I find out how to get my CCTV cameras onto my web server you will be
able to view them but as yet I have not got a clue how to do this!

Sorry folks for the long one but they are great fun.

B. "needing to get out more"

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Hetherington [mailto:mark.egroups@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 11 November 2001 23:39
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Mini Timers
>

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